Needless to say, the orderly-man is excused all parades during his day of duty as such. Only in exceptional circumstances are cooks taken for parades, and such men as the regimental shoemaker, the armourer and his assistants, and other men employed in various capacities, attend the regular duty parades very seldom. On field days occasionally, and also on certain commanding-officers’ drill parades, the orders of the day announce that the battalion will parade “as strong as possible.” This means a general sweep up and turning out of men employed in various ways and excused from parades as a rule, and their unhandiness owing to lack of practice sometimes results in their being relieved from their posts and returned to duty, while frequently it involves their doing extra drills in addition to their regular work.
The duty-man affects to despise the man on the staff, but this affectation is more often a cloak for envy. “Staff jobs,” as the various forms of employment in a unit are called, generally mean extra pay; in nineteen cases out of twenty they mean exemption from most ordinary parades and from a good deal of the ordinary routine work of the unit concerned; in almost all cases they mean total exemption from fatigues. Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the secret ambition of the average infantryman at duty, when he has relinquished all hope of promotion, is to get on the staff.
CHAPTER V
CAVALRY
Practically any man of the twenty-eight cavalry regiments of the line will announce with pride that he belongs to the “right of the line.” By this claim is meant that if the British Army were formed up in line, the regiment for which the claim is made will be on the right of all the rest. As a matter of fact this claim on the part of the cavalryman is incorrect, for when the Royal Horse Artillery parade with their guns, they take precedence of all other units, except the Household Cavalry.
British cavalry is divided normally into three regiments of Household Cavalry and twenty-eight cavalry regiments of the line. These latter are subdivided into seven regiments of Dragoon Guards, three of Dragoons, and eighteen regiments of Lancers and Hussars. Theoretically, Lancers take precedence over Hussars, but in actual practice the two classes of cavalry are about equal. Dragoon Guards and Dragoons rank as heavy cavalry; Lancers are supposed to be of medium weight, and Hussars light cavalry. In reality Dragoon Guards and Dragoons are slightly heavier than other corps—except the Household Cavalry, who are heaviest of all—but Lancers and Hussars are of about equal weight, both as regards horses and men.
The possession of a horse and the duties involved thereby render the work of a cavalryman vastly different from that of an infantryman. In the matter of guard duties, for instance, it would be possible in time of peace to abolish all infantry guard duties without affecting the well-being of the units concerned. In cavalry regiments, on the other hand, it is absolutely necessary that a certain number of men should be placed on night guard over the stables, since horses are capable of doing themselves a good deal of harm in the course of a night, if left to themselves. This is only one instance of the difference between cavalry and infantry, but it must be apparent to the most superficial observer that a vast difference exists between the two arms of the service.
Cavalrymen affect to despise the infantry, whom they term “foot sloggers” and “beetle crushers,” while various other uncomplimentary epithets are also applied at times to the men who walk while the cavalry ride. Each section of the cavalry has its own particular prides and prejudices. The Household Cavalry, for instance, consider themselves entitled to look down on the regiments of the line; line cavalrymen, conversely, affect to despise the men of the Household Brigade, who, they say, count it a hardship to go to Windsor and never get nearer to foreign service than Aldershot. Further, a Dragoon Guard considers himself immensely superior to a mere Dragoon; both look down—a long way down—on the thought of service in the Lancers, and all three affect to despise the idea of serving as Hussars. In the meantime the Hussars declare that Dragoons are big, heavy, and useless, while Lancers are not much better, and the Hussar is the only perfect cavalryman. All this, however, is a matter of good-humoured chaff, and in reality Dragoons and Lancers, or Dragoons and Hussars, or any two regiments belonging to different branches of the cavalry, when placed side by side in the same station, respect each other’s qualities without undue regard to their particular designations.
Among the many little legends and traditions of the cavalry, that attaching to the Carabiniers (Sixth Dragoon Guards) is as interesting as any, though not a particularly creditable one. It is alleged that some time during the Peninsular Campaign this regiment misbehaved itself in some way, and the sentence passed on it was to the effect that officers and men alike should no longer wear the red tunic common to Dragoon and Dragoon Guard regiments. Thenceforth a blue tunic was substituted for the more brilliant red, and in addition a mocking tune was substituted for the ordinary cavalry réveillé, while the band was ordered to play before réveillé each morning—possibly the band was guilty of exceptionally bad behaviour in order to merit this extra-special punishment. In any case the blue tunic, the réveillé and the band-playing have persisted unto this day, and even yet it is unsafe to inquire too closely of a Carabinier into the reason of his wearing a blue tunic while all others of his kind wear red, although the regiment elected to retain the blue tunic when a further change of colour was proposed.